All Kiwi travellers in every RV should by rights have boats onboard with them. A small rubber dinghy, a pair of kayaks, perhaps. It stands to reason, for New Zealand is endowed with as many fine waterways to explore as scenic roads in mountains and forests. Exploring takes on new dimensions with adventures afloat.
And no better place to exemplify this than the upper reaches of the massive Kaipara Harbour on the west coast of Te Ika a Māui, our North Island.
The Kaipara is a harbour of superlatives. It’s the biggest in New Zealand by a country mile, with over 800km of shoreline. The water covers 947 square kilometres at high tide, and at low water, a huge spread of 409 square kilometres of mudflats are exposed. All of this makes for some considerable tidal flows, with 7960 million cubic metres of water being moved every day by the tides.
